Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead-Chapter 551 : The Reek

"By our sun's glow… This smell makes me want to scrape off my nose using a blunt rock… What do you think-"

Ioleznta turned to see a good friend bending over to empty the contents of her stomach, manifesting a sludge-like carpet of former food into being.

"What do I think?! If it's bad for you, it's worse for me! My sense of smell is incredibly strong, you know? This stench… Is indescribable, it's like my nostrils are under attack, or maybe it's because some bits of puke managed to get into them" Iliz had not been expecting to be suddenly hit with an olfactive attack.

In the Emerald Realm, such filthy odours were rare, and especially this one, whomst neither of the two women had ever gotten a whiff of, slowly, they moved through the tall blue grass, closer to the source of this terrible reek, step by step as it was getting worse with each of them, the priestess having to be extra careful in her approach otherwise she might start unloading stomach bile as well.

Ioleznta maintained her charming, playful smile, but was still covering her nose with one hand as it was growing seriously difficult to even breath, if you breathed nasally, the stench would be so overwhelming that you would unconsciously stumble back, if you breathed with your mouth, a most awful taste would infest your taste glands, like you had just taken a huge bite out of mushrooms growing from a pile a dung.

Eyes were growing watery as they were irritated, entire bodies feeling filthy and greasy as they finally reached what looked like the epicenter of this terrible odour, the air itself felt heavy.

"This is awful…" commented Iliz, two wings sprouting from her back, perfectly lined-up with thin openings in her robes whilst Ioleznta just floated up whilst surrounded by green orbs of light, they had forsaken flying up to this place as the smell somehow got worse when they got higher, but now, they needed to take a good look from above.

It was like a big drop of acid had fallen from the sky and crashed down in the middle of this field of tall grass, a wide circle was cut out with lines varying in length sprouting from it, all presence of grass having been shaved off.

Of course, it had all been turned to spirit life and would soon begin to regrow, but the fact was that this was no a common occurrence, in fact, one might say that it had never happened, only an Arahtazthat Queen could have perhaps mustered enough acid to cause something like this, but this was nowhere near the edges of the land, a queen would barely ever move away from the underbelly and the angle it had to have come from clearly indicated something falling straight upon the ground, not acidic venom being fired from afar and falling down.

And as apart from the two-headed spiders, no other beasts possessed the means to do such a thing, and also considering that this had occurred exactly where the refugees had first appeared upon being transported here, it really only left one logical conclusion.

"Dammit… Is that smell… That of death?" wondered Iliz.

"I guess so, but maybe our friends would say that it is the so-called rot or decay?" the herald responded, both of them landing back on the ground, there were no other traces apart from the damage done to the grass, no foreign energy, no signs of what had caused this in the first place.

Only a vile reek and a random shape carved out into the grass.

"The amount of spirit life hanging around here is excessively higher than it should be for some grass, do you sense any beasts nearby?"

"Not at all, neither did some pass through here recently save for the insects and some small rodents- Be careful though, you don't know what could have made that much spirit life"

Although both Divine Dancing Priestesses and Emerald Heralds were closely attuned to spirit life as absorption of it was required for their ascension to such ranks, but the heralds were especially close to it as the emerald sun absorbed most of the spirit life and then distributed it back through its magnificent light.

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Nothing simpler for Ioleznta than to gather the scattered spirit life all around to take a better look at what it used to be, after all, through the reflected light of the sun, she could even peek into people's dream, well, that wasn't the exact truth but none could force a confession out of her.

It was just that being did not only turn to spirit life upon their passing, but they also leak some as time went on, be it from bits of skin dying off and being replaced or any other small bits that were actually being replaced within and upon one's body, it was thanks to this that Ioleznta could know a whole lot about people, and so could all other heralds, a boon to set up the most specific and elaborate of pranks upon others.

And also for investigation by basically doing the same thing, separating the odd spirit life from that of the recently deceased grass and small fauna was relatively easy as Ioleznta could clearly tell what she was used to from the oddness of the brunt of what was left floating around, in fact, there was an odd stillness to that great amount of spirit life, gathering it all in front of her, it was easy to tell that it had all come from a single being having been broken down.

Mentioning this to Iliz, it was already suspicious.

"Even polpitirs don't produce that much… Not nearly as much, I doubt even an ahltaizth would create so much" she remarked carefully peering into all of those wisps that were supposed to soon go back into the ecosystem.

"Ioleznta?"

The herald had suddenly gone stiff.

"I am… Fine" she stepped back for the agglomerated spirit life, blood seeping upon her grey face, two lines flowing from her nostrils, a slight metallic taste invaded the mouth, the pattern of her eyes staying the same for several dozens of seconds before beginning to shift with the same regularity as usual.

"I think someone just tried to kill me, however…" she looked intently at the spirit life, as the name indicated, it was life in of itself, completely opposed to death even though it was formed from corpses, and yet, the will of the undead that been broken down upon stepping into the realm was immaculately intact, as though even if suddenly turned alive, nothing could possibly change the deep-rooted undeath within.

Thankfully, it was just a will stuck within small wisps of life, otherwise Ioleznta might have gotten off worse than this, brushing off the blood on her face, the herald grabbed all that had carried the murderous will and crushed it using emerald light, preferring to destroy everything rather than allow it to seep back into the environment.

Although she had been almost immediately slugged in the face for interacting with it, Ioleznta had still gleaned a few details, such as the fact that the undead was still trying to reform even as particles of spirit life, who knows what would happen if some of those wisps were used to form another being, would it be capable of incarnating within their flesh? That seemed a little far-fetched especially with the emerald sun overlooking such things, but it wasn't just any undead from the looks of it.

"...It might have been the infamous Loimos, in fact"

"Doesn't it mean that he is destroyed, though?"

"Somehow, I doubt it, the intent left behind is so immaculate and oddly… Reactive, that it's like it is still attached to something rather than mere remnants… In any case, the undead have found a way to enter, but good news, they can't actually exist in our realm"

"We better hurry up and prepare for conflict either way, if they are intent on getting here, they might just find a way" Iliz stated, noticing that the horrific stench was gone.

"Are you really alright though? What sort of attack was it to give you a nosebleed?" the priestess approached her friend, it hadn't been a physical strike from the looks of things, which means that it was probably pretty bad.

"I think that fellow tried to infect me with a disease, but don't worry, it was instantly cleansed by the light I keep within me- Well, I'll go get checked up still though…"